"Who is going to save our Church? Not our bishops, not our priests and religious. It is up to you, the people. You have the minds, the eyes, the ears to save the Church. Your mission is to see that your priests act like priests, your bishops, like bishops, and your religious act like religious." - Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, 1972

Saturday, February 27, 2016

CERTIFICATE OF TITLE FIASCO - PART 8: "LAW OFFICES OF JACKIE TERLAJE"

On December 14, 2015, I decided to pay a visit to the office of the Deputy Registrar of Titles, occupied by a certain Mr. Andrew D. Santos. Mr. Santos is a friend of mine and I bear him no ill will nor do I want to infer that he has done anything of his own that is untoward.

I only bring Mr. Santos into this discussion simply because he is at the center of the controversy of the bogus certificate of title, published by the Archdiocese of Agana in its official newspaper, the U Matuna, on November 29, 2015.

Upon visiting Mr. Santos, I inquired if he was aware of the November 29, 2015 issue of the U Matuna which showed the bogus, or shall we say for now, "incorrect" certificate of title, bearing his signature.

Mr. Santos admitted seeing the issue of the U Matuna at Mass that weekend, and upon seeing the published copy of the certificate realized, in his words, that "something was wrong." He then informed me that he was in the process of correcting it.

I then asked Mr. Santos who asked him to correct it. Mr. Santos answered "law offices." Naturally I replied, "law offices who?" Mr. Santos in turn replied that he couldn't recall which "law offices," just that it was "law offices."

I then asked: "Law offices of Jackie Terlaje?" Mr. Santos neither confirmed nor denied, and reverted to something along the line of "I think so."

There is more that transpired at that meeting that I will later reveal. And I am holding back because the matter of the bogus, er, I mean "incorrect" certificate of title is a matter for the Director of Land Management to address, and I am told he is on it. So I'll wait...for now.

Meanwhile, though my suspicion that the "law offices" mentioned by Mr. Santos was actually the "Law Office of Jackie Terlaje" was confirmed when I found a copy of this email dated ONE DAY AFTER my visit to Mr. Santos:

And there is more.

The U Matuna of November 29, 2015 published a front page story along with the bogus certificate of title entitled "Ownership of Seminary property confirmed." The story quoted Msgr. David C. Quitugua, Vicar General.

It was believed that the reason David the VG was at the center of the story was because Archbishop Apuron was thought to be off-island, at least according to the following itinerary, which shows that he was not due back on Guam until at least November 30. (The itinerary has him at the Kansai International airport in Osaka at 420PM, presumably on his way back to Guam.)

However, the Certificate of Title Sign-out Logbook at the Department of Land Management...

...shows the signature of a certain "Archbishop of Agana, Anthony S. Apuron," dated November 19, 2015, and a request for copies of certificates of title for the four lots which make up the "seminary property."

Let's take a closer look at the logbook:

Now, let's look at this part:

A certain "Lovelynn Maidesil" is the person who prints and signs her name next to Apuron's. According the the Title Guaranty of Guam website, "Lovelynn Maidesil" is a "Researcher" and apparently she was conducting business in behalf of "Archbishop of Agana, Anthony S. Apuron."

If you look at the complete page of the logbook and zoom in, you will see that most of the people who signed in are requesting copies of certificates of title in their own behalf. Thus the name in the "NAME" column is the same name as the name in the PRINT NAME and SIGNATURE columns.

However, there are also some instances recorded above where one party is requesting in behalf of the owner, in which case the NAME of the holder of the certificate is printed or written clearly, and the person doing the actual requesting prints and signs their own name.

In this case, it appears that Ms. Maidesil was not just acting in behalf of the Archbishop, it looks like he himself was there. Compare the signatures above to his signature on a recent letter:

The bogus certificate was published in the U Matuna on November 30, 2015: